


Like a ship to shore, I call to you

by Sadisticsparkle (sadisticsparkle)



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Avengers Vol. 4 (2010), Bitterness, Captain America Iron Man Reverse Big Bang 2019, Eldritch Abominations, Fix-It of Sorts, Heroic Age - Freeform, Journey to the Center of the Mind, M/M, Mind Manipulation, Mutual Pining, No Tentacle Sex, POV Steve Rogers, Post-Civil War (Marvel), Tentacle Monsters, Thought I'd better clarify that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 09:21:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18848152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadisticsparkle/pseuds/Sadisticsparkle
Summary: After SHIELD picks up strange energy readings under the Labrador Sea, Tony takes off and heads to the middle of the nowhere without bothering to alert anybody else.Steve takes off after him, not knowing that whatever is lurking under the water will force them to face their mistakes.





	Like a ship to shore, I call to you

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Sinking](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18849901) by [dirigibleplumbing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirigibleplumbing/pseuds/dirigibleplumbing). 



> Thanks to dirigibleplumbing's great art which was super inspiring and my main motivation to get this finished instead of just changing my name and moving to Outer Mongolia in a panic.
> 
> The fic is ambiguously set in early v4, definitely before the future Avengers arc but no further precision needed. It's a slight AU in the sense that Namor had the Mind Gem instead of Professor Xavier, but it's the kind of mild retcon Marvel pulls off all the time so!

No matter how much fancier the tech had become or how much Stark had kept fiddling with it, they had never gotten the Quinjets to be completely silent. Steve didn’t care - the low rumble of the Quinjet was a welcome sound, a familiar caress that brought memories of all his years as an Avenger to the surface of his mind. But the murmur from the engines wasn’t enough to drown out Steve’s thoughts, just like the dark wide expanse of the Labrador Sea wasn’t enough to distract him from them either. He had spent most of the flight trying, but despite urgent messages from Hill and reports from all over the world, his eyes kept going back to the small intermittent dot on the radar that was moving farther and farther away from the coast and into the Atlantic Ocean. But even if the Quinjets were noisy, they were also fast so they were gaining on the dot, slowly but steadily. Iron Man was now close enough that if he were to look out the window, Tony would be there cutting across the orange sky, in the same way he had always done so - a bright, shiny marvel of modern engineering and individual genius accelerating in the air that even now Steve couldn’t help but admire.

A shiny engineering marvel cutting across the sky for no real good reason and without any real explanation other than some weird energy readings that Tony had said were slightly odd, but nothing to worry about. So odd and irrelevant Tony had immediately taken off and headed to the middle of the nowhere without bothering to alert anybody else. Steve had known then that he had to check what it was personally, because Tony sure as hell wouldn’t tell him and he didn’t trust others with this mission. They had talked about this, him and Tony. Tony had _promised_ not to do this anymore and Steve had pretended to believe him despite his better judgment.

Maybe this was their new normal. They would smile, embrace and make proclamations of trust and friendship while all the resentment, the bleeding edges of their distrust and everything else they didn’t want to contemplate simmered under the surface. Steve was tired of this eternal misunderstanding - two ships passing in the night, and an SOS signal none of them wanted to acknowledge - but he didn’t know how to fix it anymore. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to.

Maybe he had to warn Iron Man. Tell him to wait for them, to stop doing whatever he was doing, but Tony didn’t let him make that choice. Before the Quinjet could reach him, Iron Man’s voice crackled through the plane’s sound system. When Steve got back to SHIELD, he was going to tell them to do a security review.

‘Wait there. I will come to you.’

‘You don’t give the orders here anymore,’ Steve said, not even sure if Iron Man could hear him. Maybe it was better to ignore Iron Man’s orders, but Steve nodded to the pilot and the plane slowed down and then stood still above the sea.

The blur of red and gold - he tried to ignore the pang of nostalgia, but he couldn’t - turned around and dived towards the plane. Another nod to the pilot and the cargo door opened. They didn’t have to wait long to see Iron Man land with a heavy thud that sent a ripple of vibrations through the floor. The loud familiarity of it made Steve’s heart skip a beat and his whole body shiver, but he wouldn’t let his memories deceive him. He couldn’t trust Tony, at least not the way he used to. He wanted to, but Tony hadn’t earned it back, not yet and maybe not ever. It hurt, but it was the truth - they were now people who could be mistaken for strangers, except the way they kept hurting each other was too intimate for that.

He walked towards the door and stood in front of Tony, with his arms crossed and mustering every ounce of authority in his being.

‘So… did you fancy a seaside vacation?’ he said instead of _hello_.

Tony took off his helmet before speaking. Steve knew that trick so it wouldn’t help. He promised himself he wouldn’t fall for the fake honesty in Tony’s limpid blue eyes or for the warm smiles that failed to reach his eyes.

‘There were some odd readings,’ Tony started but Steve didn’t want to let him finish. If he was kept off-balance, Tony wouldn’t rally with a lie. He had to be faster and not allow Tony time to think.

‘We know that already,’ he interrupted. ‘Odd spikes in radiation levels around here, starting two or three days ago… but nothing that would be so urgent as to require Iron Man’s presence. So you must know something else.’

There was a second of hesitance on Tony’s part, an infinitesimal frown only somebody as attuned to Tony’s expressions as Steve would notice.

‘It wouldn’t be urgent, except the readings are consistent with the Mind Gem.’

 _Liar_ , Steve thought, but managed to bite it back, to bury it deep inside his chest alongside all the other times he had been disappointed in Tony.

‘The Mind Gem? Here on Earth? And I didn’t know?’

‘I wasn’t happy when I realized it either.’

‘That’s not… You should have told me. You shouldn’t have come here alone.’

‘I know how it works. What to look for.’

‘Do you know how to stop it?’

Tony didn’t say anything at first, turning around instead so he could look back at the ocean. It was almost sunset. The sea was agitated and Steve wondered what crawled below the waves, in the dark depths Namor called his kingdom. According to his intel, there was nothing there but emptiness, but you never knew what lurked in the dark.

‘I have theories, but we need to find it first. The readings indicate it’s underwater,’ Tony said, finally, without looking away from the water.

‘Hm. It’s the only logical place it can be but still… reports show there’s nothing there. No Atlantean outpost, no forgotten Kree spaceship or whatever. And if it’s there, but there’s apparently nothing, then it sounds like…’

‘Like a trap. But even if it is one, we both know I have to set it off if we want to get it back,’ Tony said, looking back at Steve. The sun brought up the crimson in the armor and it contrasted with the bright blue of Tony’s eyes. He shook his head. That wasn’t… he had to stop thinking about that.

‘We _both_ know nothing, Tony. What else do you know?’

Something wasn’t making sense. He was trying to figure it out, lost in the dark, but he could feel it. Tony knew something else that Steve wasn’t allowed to know.

‘I’m going to check if it’s there,’ Tony said, not even bothering to come up with a lie.

He grabbed Tony’s arm and kept him pinned in place. He wasn’t going to let him walk away from him, not without telling the truth.

‘No, that’s too reckless. Let’s figure this out first. Why is the Gem on Earth? Is it the only one? Are the rest here too?’

‘I… don’t know,’ Tony said and then he put his hand over Steve’s but didn’t try to remove Steve’s hand from his arm.

‘Tony. I’m not an idiot even if you keep treating me like one.’

‘I don’t think you’re an idiot.’

Steve snorted. ‘But you don’t deny you treat me like one.’

Tony deflated and stepped away. ‘It’s not that. You just… you wouldn’t understand.’

Steve squared his shoulders and crossed his arms again. ‘It’s not about understanding. It’s about having enough information to make the right calls. Where are the rest of the Gems?’

‘It’s not my secret to tell.’

‘It absolutely is. If you know how the Mind Gem ended up here, then you have to tell me.’

‘All of them are on Earth. In secure places.’

‘ _What_? Who authorized that?’

‘There’s a group of… heroes. Representatives from… well, from different teams.’

‘Who are you talking about?’

‘Me. Xavier. Namor. Black Bolt. Reed. T’Challa.’

Each name made Steve’s anger spike. They hadn’t told him, any of them. He pictured them, pretentious and cold, deciding the fate of the world without asking for anyone’s opinion.

‘Right. Smart men. _Proud_ men.’

Tony lowered down the faceplate.

‘Maybe, but I’m not the only proud man here.’

‘I wouldn’t let my pride blind me.’

‘It’s exactly what you’re doing now. You’re angry I lied.’

‘Of course I’m angry you lied! That has nothing to do with my pride.’

Tony towered over him, but he wouldn’t let himself be cowed. This wasn’t the first time Tony had tried that and it wouldn’t be the first time Tony succeeded.

‘Really? Nothing at all? Are you angry I lied to everybody or are you angry I lied to you?’ Tony asked with a cold, detached tone that betrayed how upset he was.

‘This is not… It’s not about me. I’m supposed to know this type of thing if I want to do my job right. You’re supposed to trust me now.’

‘Well, do you trust _me_?’

‘You know I… You know I do.’

‘Then let me check this out,’ Tony said, pretending he didn’t know Steve was lying. ‘I’ll tell you the rest once we have the Gem.’

‘Will you stop if I ask you to?’

Tony said nothing. It was answer enough, so Steve nodded.

‘I’ll keep you posted,’ Tony said before turning around again toward the door. It had remained open so all Iron Man had to do was fly out of it and then dive down toward the stormy waves. Steve followed him - he walked right to the edge and looked down. He had to keep an eye on Tony, for both their sakes’.

‘Do you see anything?’ he asked.

‘No. The readings are… well, the Gem should be closer now.’

‘Is there anything down there? A city? A ship? Our sonar picks up nothing,’ Steve asked when he saw Iron Man hovering a few feet above the water. Maybe the armor’s sensors would pick up something no other equipment had. It wouldn’t be the first time it had happened.

‘Same here. It’s a normal nondescript bit of the ocean with no real mystery and no deep trenches where you can hide an Infinity Gem away from prying eyes.’

‘Hm.’

‘Which makes it more suspicious, I know.’

Steve frowned. The Gems had always been a source of trouble. A wondrous source of trouble that embodied the mysteries of the universe, but not Steve’s favorite thing to think about or deal with. And now the Mind Gem was there, hidden, in his own planet and Steve didn’t even know how that had happened.

‘Can it be the Gem? Can it be playing with us?’

‘If somebody took it, they might be doing that, yes. We wouldn’t see the Gem even if it was five feet in front of us.’

‘I still think it’s a trap.’

‘It’s always a trap,’ Tony said.

To prove him right, something chose that second to come out of the water. It shattered the sea’s surface and swatted at Tony, who avoided it by going higher and to his left.

‘Be ready to pick up Iron Man,’ he said to the pilot.

Whatever was there fighting Tony was dark, twisty, slimy… a tentacle. Of course. Not a city, not a ship - a monster. He hoped it was a product of the Gem and not its new owner. The battle and the sea raged below the Quinjet - Steve could see the tentacle aim and miss at Tony and the shine of Tony’s weapons. The armor was flying towards the tentacle, but Tony was moving too fast for him to be sure of what was going on. The tentacles followed the blur of the armor, clunky and ungainly.

‘Iron Man! Status?’

For a few seconds, there was silence but then Tony’s voice flooded the Quinjet, panting and in distress.

‘Cap! I’m… I’m okay. It’s just…’

Then there was just static - Steve knew that sound, it was the fizzy sound the armor communication system made when it was out of power.

‘Iron Man! Come in!’

Nothing. He looked down - the tentacle was retreating into the water and Iron Man was nowhere to be seen.

‘Bring us closer!’ he yelled at the pilot.

‘Sir? Are you sure?’

‘It’s an order!’

If Tony was lost to the depths, powerless and trapped in the armor, there was only one possible choice. The choice was so obvious that by the time Steve’s mind was made up, he was already mid-air, plunging towards the water. It had always been a reflex, jumping after Tony.

It took only a few seconds before he was crashing into the water. His whole body hurt - the water had been as soft as a wall of concrete - and pain rushed through his limbs like wildfire. Every muscle of his body ached and there was no space for anything else in his mind but the cold and the hurt and the dark. The pain subsided first, receding into a throbbing dull sensation across his muscles, and then his eyes adjusted to the dying sunlight that still broke through the water’s surface. It was enough to see something gleaming below him. Something metallic, something bright - Iron Man, sinking fast. Of course. It was 425 lbs of metal and flesh, of pure dead weight. There was no movement, no indication Tony was conscious, no other sound but the water around Steve. The monster was nowhere to be seen, so he started swimming down towards Iron Man. He had to get Tony out before the armor turned into his coffin.

But before he could reach him, the tentacles darted out of the darkness again. They weren’t clumsy and heavy anymore, but sinuous and elegant, striking with precision. The monster, whatever it was, was in its element now. They were on its turf so Steve couldn’t afford to lose more time. He had to get Iron Man to the Quinjet so they could plan their next move and get back the Gem before whoever controlled the monster could do actual damage. All he had to do was catch Tony and swim up and everything would be okay. Nothing… nothing he hadn’t done before, but he wasn’t quick enough. He kicked his legs behind him, but the monster had already surrounded the armor - only a glimpse of red could be seen between the dark green tentacles. It dragged Tony down, faster and faster.

Steve pushed himself more, but there was no air inside his lungs and his vision was going blurry. He wanted to gasp and his whole body wanted to get out of the water, get air, but he couldn’t let Tony go. This couldn’t be how It ended. So he swam, deeper and deeper, ignoring the sharp spikes of pain in his arms and the sharp bite of the cold sea. He focused his eyes on the monster - if he kept his eyes on the prize, he could endure it.

But then there was a blinding flash of light and for a second, there was nothing else. The light stopped as quickly as it had started and when Steve opened his eyes again, there was nothing but a featureless, endless black void. He tried to find the floor, but he was floating - was it floating if there wasn’t any kind of ground? Panic grew in his gut and he couldn’t stop his body from gasping but then air and not water filled his lungs. He breathed in once and then twice and then his body calmed down. It was weird, swimming in the void, but he had seen weirder.

The void was empty, except for a figure he could see a good 100 ft ahead of him, floating in the same way he was and bathed by dim blue light. It was the monster from before but it was smaller than he had thought - around the size of a whale and not the size of three buildings. It wasn’t a known animal or even an enemy they had encountered before. Steve tried to examine it - most of its lower half was a twisted nest of tendrils and tentacles with three heads growing out of that tangle. Long, green seaweed covered the heads. Behind the seaweed curtain, he could see the glimmer of round and protruding eyes and the hint of several gasping mouths with rows and rows of rotting teeth and bifurcated tongues that kept darting out.

At first, he missed the small figure in red and gold trapped inside the shifting tentacles. It looked as if the monster had lulled Tony to sleep in its arms and was now rocking him. He hoped… no. He _knew_ Tony was still alive. As long as Tony was alive, they’ be able to escape. He tried to walk, to put one foot in front of the other, but that wasn’t a possibility, not without a floor. So he kicked his legs mid-air and moved his arms, but he was still stuck in the same place. All the flailing of activity, all the effort of moving on, just to find himself where he had started again.

He opened his mouth to scream and no sound came out.

 _Tony_ , he thought, and then he fell through the darkness.

 

He fell and fell, feeling no air and no resistance until he hit something hard and dry. It didn’t even hurt and it was good to find his ground again. He planted his palms on the ground and pushed himself up to his feet. When he did stand up, the world around came into focus - or came into being. There was an iron gate in front of him, one he knew like the back of his hand - it was the Mansion’s, back when it still stood proud, whole and unwounded. He took a step towards the gate, tentatively. His foot left the ground and then went down a little further away. He could move now, then, so he walked toward the gate and pushed it open. He stepped into the Mansion’s garden and even if he knew it was an illusion, his heart still skipped when he saw a figure in red. It wasn’t Tony. It was Wanda, standing in the middle of the green, colorful garden. She was wearing her uniform and a necklace that reflected the sunlight. Her hair was glossy and her smile was bright. He missed her so much, sometimes, when he allowed himself to remember the happy times.

He had to remember what was going on now - the Mind Gem was playing tricks with him and he couldn’t let it fool him. The past was an alluring trap, but the Gem would have to do better than this if it wanted to trap Steve.

One of the Mansion’s doors opened and Tony came out with a glass of lemonade. They hadn’t seen Steve yet, but Wanda waved at Tony and they started talking and laughing. Steve kept walking towards them. He needed to talk to the real Tony and this was his only hint, his only chance. The grass dried with each step he took and the walls started to crumble down around him. The sun died and the sky turned gray. Wanda turned around to see him, but a glade breezed through the garden and then she was gone. Tony wasn’t smiling anymore and he was in his armor - Steve winced. He remembered that day.

‘Tony.’

Tony shook his head and the armor fell. He stepped forward and took a swing at Steve. But Steve knew it was coming so he jumped to the side, avoided it and then Tony fell forward to the mat and laughed. The laughter was young and carefree and the walls grew again. They were inside, in the gym. Tony’s hair was dark and floppy and they were both sweating. So this was probably some training before he even knew Tony was Iron Man.

‘I’m never going to be able to beat you, right, Captain?’ Tony said with a smile.

Steve took a step ahead and put a hand on Tony’s shoulder.

‘Shellhead,’ he said softly but when he touched Tony, Tony crumpled to the floor.

Machinery grew from the walls like industrial vines and the lights went out, replaced by darkness. It wasn’t the Mansion anymore and it wasn’t a place he remembered. Something out of Tony’s memories, then.

Tony. He looked down again and saw Tony clutching his foot. There wasn’t blood, but Tony … Tony had lost his heel and had gained two or three decades. He had never seen Tony like that, with a frown so deep it seemed etched into his forehead and circles under his eyes so dark that he thought Tony hadn’t slept in weeks. Or months. What kind of nightmares could keep you awake like that?

‘Tony! Look at me!’ he said.

But Tony didn’t.

‘You’re not here. You can’t be here,’ he said instead.

‘Of course I’m here! Get a hold of yourself! This is a trick. You have to know this is a trick.’

Tony shook his head and refused to look at Steve. ‘You’re the trick, Steve. I’m not an idiot. You can’t be here.’

‘It’s the Mind Gem. It’s playing with us. Trapping us.’

‘If it’s the Mind Gem, maybe I should just give up and let it win. It’s just giving me what I want’

Steve looked around. Was this what Tony wanted? This dark place with humming machinery and air thick with acrid fumes and the smell of rotting flesh? Steve thought he could hear screams, but they weren’t as blood-curdling as the way Tony was laughing now. A dry, heaving laughter that seemed to come from Hell itself. Maybe that was where they were - Tony’s personal hell.

‘You… is punishment what you want?’

Tony’s eyes, still blue and still magnetic, tore through Steve. ‘Yes. Punishment is the only way I get to see you.’

Steve didn’t know what to do, so he knelt in front of him and tried to touch Tony’s shoulder again. Maybe that’d get them out of there like it did before.

He was right because when he touched Tony’s shoulder, everything got brighter. The air cleared and the screams stopped. Even if he could still hear the thrumming of machinery and the walls still gleamed like metal under the harsh fluorescent light, it wasn’t the same place. Everything glimmered, even his own arm because scales started to cover it. Bright, red scales. Oh, it wasn’t scales. It was armor, metallic armor. He jumped away but it didn’t stop and instead, it started wrapping up around his whole body. It enveloped his legs and his chest and then he was trapped inside the armor. It was heavy and Steve wasn’t able to move it. Where was Tony? Had they got separated?

He tried to look around, but his eyes wouldn’t move from what was right in front of him. He gasped - there was a block of ice and a younger Steve Rogers was asleep inside of it. He would wake up soon, surrounded by weird, fascinating people from the future. Weird enough that it’d distract him from the chill inside his chest, from how lonely everything was and how different the world had become in his absence.

He heard a buzzing among the sound of the engines. He hadn’t realized how much he had missed it, how unique it had always been. With effort, he turned around and there she was, flying next to him. Jan. She laughed and her laughter echoed like a twinkle across the submarine. How long had it been since he had last heard it? Hank and Thor were there too, but Tony was nowhere to be found, even if he needed to be there for the rest of it to happen. The ice would melt and Tony’s voice would take him out of his slumber and his life would begin anew. He took a step forward and laid a hand on top of the ice.

‘I can’t believe you still remember this…’ he said but then he shivered. The armor was falling away from his skin and the cold of the ice was replacing it, creeping up his arm.

He took a step back and shuddered, to no avail. The cold kept invading his body and he was growing so cold it made his mind sluggish. He tried to shake it off, tried to move his body but he couldn’t. He wanted to scream, but his mouth wouldn’t open and no matter how nervous he was, it was as if his heart had stopped as if his blood was now the water from the ocean where he had spent so many years asleep. He couldn’t even feel his pulse, only silence. Even if he couldn’t open his eyes, he knew he was lying somewhere cold and dark. The armor was gone entirely because he didn’t feel the weight of it, just the unbearable weight of his own body. In the middle of the silence, there was a whisper, a murmur. A voice. He tried to turn toward the origin of the voice but he still couldn’t move.

At least he knew that voice. It was Tony’s. He was talking and Steve couldn’t understand the words at first because he was so distant from what was going on. Then he heard names, names of people they had loved, and the plaintive tone Tony always used when he was sorry. When he was explaining himself, when he had made a mistake and hadn’t foreseen the consequences. He didn’t understand the words, not all of them, but now he knew what Tony was talking about - the war. It couldn’t be anything else.

But Steve didn’t remember this. This had never happened. This was an illusion, not a memory - the Mind Gem offering them closure, offering Steve a chance to understand Tony. A chance to finally listen to each other. A gorgeous trap where Steve could be reassured Tony had done all of it because he loved them. To protect them. He couldn’t stay here, no matter how tempting it was. He had to get back to the real Tony, rescue him, even if he didn’t even remember what he had done because of his pride and arrogance.

Then there was a sob tore from somebody’s throat, full with grief. Was it him? Was he the one sobbing? No. It was Tony again. He had never heard Tony like that, not even when… not even when he was drinking. Not even when Wanda had done what she did. Tony was sobbing and Tony was talking and he did understand the last words Tony said before the sobs started again.

‘It wasn’t worth it.’

The sobs faded away but the cold didn’t. Steve was still cold, so cold he started shivering again but at least his body was weighing less and less. His heart started beating again and his warm blood chased the cold away from his limbs. There was warmth next to him as well - maybe the sun, bringing his body back to life.

He opened his eyes and saw Tony. Tony looking at him with worried eyes, Tony putting a hand on Steve’s face, Tony with sunlight on his hair and a fond smile.

‘Hey. Had a bad dream?’

Steve’s mouth was filled with the taste of death, the rotten taste of lingering secrets and half-hidden truths. He said nothing, but Tony embraced him, even if Steve couldn’t stop shivering. Steve closed his eyes again, lost himself in the warm, warm arms of Tony. Tony was always so full of life, even at his worst. And this was Tony at his best because he could tell when they were now. The Tower, some lazy afternoon with just the two of them and only the sun and the distant thrumming of New York for company. Steve had loved those days when he would wake up from a nap on the sofa and find Tony there, where he was supposed to be. Maybe the team was away on some mission, maybe they all had a day off but he didn’t care. He didn’t want to lose this, not again.

‘Tony. We need to…’

‘Shhh, it’s okay. We don’t need to do anything,’ Tony said and then kissed Steve’s temple. That made Steve shiver again. ‘Are you still cold?’

‘It’s. Tony, we need to leave.’

Tony leaned his forehead against Steve’s. ‘No, we don’t. We can stay. Don’t you want to stay here with me? Forever? Don’t you love me?’

This had never happened, not like this. They had never admitted it, not in that quiet way, as if they had all the time in the world. There had been fumbled kisses, once upon a time, and several nights they never discussed during the day, but this was another illusion. He moved away and then Tony’s eyes grew cold first and desperate later.

‘I can’t stop thinking about it,’ Tony said, tapping his head. Was his nose broken? When was this? They were all surrounding a table and then something was shining inside their hands. The Necropolis vanished and Steve found himself on a battlefield, with the sun blocked by something. He looked up. Was that Earth? Or was that a Hellicarrier?

Tony was still there. Like he always was. The end of the world and Steve feared deep down that that was where it’d find them.

Together. Apart.

‘Tony,’ he said again and he took a step across the battlefield, but the man in front of him wasn’t Tony anymore. It was an old man and at first, Steve didn’t want to believe it, but he knew it was him, old and broken.

‘I can’t stop thinking about him,’ the old man said before youth blossomed again. The old man’s hair went golden again and his skin lost the wrinkles, but his smile became cruel and his eyes glistened with a fanatical edge. He shook his head. That wasn’t him. That wasn’t his smile, was it?

But he felt himself smiling, he felt the corners of his mouth tugging and saw the slasher smile on his own reflection. There was glass and behind the glass, Tony was asleep. Asleep, not dead. His hand moved out of his own volition and his own mouth said _he loved you_. He took a step back, knowing that the images would start changing again, now that he had touched Tony. The glass… coffin… shattered but Tony was nowhere to be seen.

‘I’m not leaving,’ he said out loud. ‘I’ll stay here until I find you, Tony. I’ll chase you until you stop running.’

A sudden burst of light blinded him and made him close his eyes. When he opened them again, he was standing in the middle of the ruins of Asgard and the shield’s weight was on his back. It was dark, with no moon and no stars above him. The only light came from a bonfire in front of him and on the other side of it stood Tony inside his armor. There was nothing else, nobody else on those ruins - only shadows and silence surrounded them.

‘You’ll never catch me,’ Tony said.

‘You know how stubborn I can get.’

‘You can’t stay,’ Tony said and the shadows from the ruins started creeping towards the bonfire.

Steve took a step forward.

‘I won’t leave you here. I won’t lose you.’

‘You’ve lost me already,’ Tony said.

‘Never.’

‘We’ve lost each other.’

‘We can always find our way back,’ he said and believed it.

‘Despite everything we’ve been through?’

‘No. _Because_ of everything we’ve been through.’

He reached out for Tony. Tony reached back.

His hand reached Tony’s and he didn’t let go. He didn’t want to, not anymore. The bonfire flickered between them and began to dissipate until only a small mite of light was left, floating between them. There was more light now - the stars were coming back and moonlight poured from the sky, reverberating across the ruins. Tony’s eyes widened in surprise - he could see that now because Tony was not in the armor anymore and his hand was soft under Steve’s. Instead of Iron Man, Steve’s favorite version of Tony - tank top, dark pants, messy hair, grease smears all over his face - was there instead. Tony in his _real_ natural habitat and free from all pretenses, Tony as Steve wanted to remember him.

‘Told you I was stubborn,’ he said.

‘Sometimes I wish you weren’t,’ Tony replied and then laughed. It was a real laugh, rich and fond, a laugh that came from their past or maybe their future.

Steve tugged Tony’s hand and grabbed him into his arms. Tony didn’t push back, didn’t run away. He rested his head on Steve’s shoulders and put his arms around Steve. All Steve could do was savor the moment, the weight between his arms and the heat emanating from Tony’s body. This was Tony. The real Tony, pulsing with anger and joy and fondness, not a fragmented memory from a happier past or a mirage built from his regrets.

‘We still need to get out of here,’ he said.

‘I have a plan.’

Despite his best efforts, Steve couldn’t help but shudder. A plan was a good thing and trepidation wasn’t necessary. They were on a better path now, right? He composed himself and kept the uneasiness out of his voice when he spoke.

‘Care to share it?’

Tony stepped away from Steve’s arms.

‘This is the Gem’s doing, we know that. It can trap us like this. And we can’t defeat the monster, not with a useless armor and no weapons other than… you.’

Steve privately thought he was weapon enough, but didn’t say it. He didn’t want Tony to call him arrogant or proud again. At least Tony’s meaning was obvious.

‘But we can trap it.’

‘Exactly. We can use the Gem against it, just like the monster used the gem against us.’

‘But how do we get the Gem?’

‘Before it captured me, I saw a glimpse of the Gem inside its… tentacle nest or whatever that is. I should be able to grab it, in the real world.’

‘Do you think you can pull it off?’

‘Well, do you trust me?’

‘Yes,’ Steve said and it was almost the truth.

Tony smiled and then he vanished. He was alone in the dark again, and it wasn’t long before a shriek cut across the air and shattered the quiet. The ruins receded into the darkness and he was back at the beginning, in the same dark void he had arrived at. But he had company now - the monster was floating above him, its tendrils and tentacles in disarray and all its mouths repeating the same question:

‘Where is the gem?’

He looked up and shivered - the monster still had Tony and he was still not moving. The Gem had created a place for them to meet, but Tony had been trapped by the monster the entire time. Steve didn’t know if Tony was asleep or playing dead to distract the monster but there wasn’t time to dwell on that. His hand went to his back, but the shield wasn’t there anymore. So no weapons, nothing to throw at the monster and no apparent help from Tony. At least he wasn’t floating anymore. He widened his stance and prepared to give his best.

‘Give him back,’ he shouted.

‘When you give me back my Gem!’

‘I don’t have it. And it’s not yours.’

‘If you don’t have it, then where is it? Tell us, tell us!’

It was growing more frantic, less controlled - each of its eyes looking all over the void, looking for the Gem. It was nowhere to be seen. The monster screamed again, a loud, wordless scream, and before Steve could move away, it lunged towards him. One of the tentacles grabbed his legs and the tendrils brought him closer to the monster.

‘Now you will have to. You’re trapped. If you want to leave, you have to give me back my gem,’ it said and then it laughed.

He was finally close to Tony now, both enclosed in the tentacle nest. He couldn’t even see the void around - instead, he saw an endlessly moving mass of squirmy blue flesh around them, shifting and fidgeting. But he could see Tony, at least. Again he reached out with a hand and even if he was still trapped by the tendrils, Tony made a small movement. A wave of relief and warmth hit him. It was the kind of sunny, fuzzy feeling of a sunset at the beach, the feeling of a rainy evening spent at home. He gasped when Tony’s eyes opened and met his. They were smiling and wide awake, no longer desperate. And he knew why, even before Tony uncurled his hand to show the Gem looking above his open palm, looking defenseless and harmless unless you knew better. Tony smirked and Steve couldn’t help but smirk back.

‘Ready?’ he heard inside his head.

‘Always,’ he replied.

He imagined a prison, a dark cave where a monster could slumber for a thousand years but then foggy memories hit their brains. They were muddled and confusing, but he could see Namor and heard a harsh sentence. There was a deep cave with no light and longing, so much longing. Longing for the sea and the life in it, for the sun and for the stars. So instead of a prison, he dreamed of a sea that never changed but was always moving. Of the ruins of the past overgrown with the flowers of the present. Of what lay at the bottom of the ocean, all but forgotten until it came back, like a half-remembered song from your childhood.

The monster crumpled around them, asleep, and the ocean overran the void they were in with, crashing into them, but they didn’t let go of each other.

Steve tugged Tony toward him and then the armor lit up, coming back to life. Tony put an arm firmly on Steve’s waist and Steve put one of his arms around Tony’s shoulders, holding on the way he was supposed to. He had missed how the armor felt when he was close, the solid weight of metal supporting him like nothing else could. If he was honest, what he had missed was Tony. He still wanted to strangle him, sometimes or most of the times and the resentment was there bubbling under the surface but… It was still Tony. It was still them. And when they got out of the water and into the sun, when the air filled his lungs and the sound of the waves drowned all other sounds, he knew they were going to be okay.

The Quinjet hadn’t left and was still floating above them, with an inviting cargo door opened. He’d have to tell the pilot he had done a good job. Tony accelerated towards it and they landed quickly and elegantly but Steve didn’t let go, not until Tony opened the faceplate and looked at him with a question in his eyes. Then, Steve took a step backward and drew a deep breath.

‘You have to send SHIELD to capture the monster. It might wake up soon,’ Tony said before Steve could speak.

‘Yes, but… Tony. I think we need to…’

Tony shook his head.

‘Talk? We’re bad at that.’

‘No, that’s not true. We’ve been bad at that, lately, but you know that’s not… that’s not how we are. How we were.’ Steve tried to make his voice soft, his intent clear, but all Tony did was turn away, retreating further into himself. ‘Tony, please. I want to… You saw it too. Our memories. Our illusions.’

Tony’s shoulders were hunched as if he was holding up the entire world and his frown was deepening, defeated and confused. Steve didn’t know what was happening.

‘I remember,’ Tony said.

‘Then you understand what I mean.’

‘It’s not that. I _remember_ , Steve. Everything. Whatever that creature did with the Gem, it brought my missing memories back.’

‘All of them?’

‘All of them.’

Steve leaned towards Tony and put his hands on Tony’s shoulders. ‘Good.’

‘Good? Why would that be good? I remember all I did. All my mistakes. All the things I did to you. All the things I did to everybody else.’

He brought Tony closer. ‘It’s better this way, even if it hurts. If we know where we’re coming from, if we know what wrong turns we took, we can see how to get where we want to be.’

‘And where’s that?’

‘Home.’

‘But… that’s gone. Been gone for years now. It doesn’t exist anymore.’

He shook his head. ‘That’s true but it doesn’t matter. We cannot ignore the past anymore, we cannot pretend things can be the way they were. They can’t be, not anymore. But we can build something new. That’s how we always find our way back to each other, isn’t it? We rebuild.’

‘It’s what I’ve been trying to do,’ Tony said after an eternity.

‘But let’s do it together.’

‘On the same team?’

The hope blossoming in Tony’s voice was heartbreaking. ‘On the same team,’ Steve said before he could think about it. Objections crowded his mind, but he waved them away. He remembered how right it had felt, defeating the monster. He wanted that back. The mistakes would still be there, but so would be the happy times. Below the surface, below the ever-changing waves, there was certainty, there was love and that was enough.


End file.
